Aerial View

Northern England

Wales

Sunset in Wales

Bridges in Southern England

London

This is a REAL person, in England

Beautiful marker for the dead in front of a Scottish Castle

The end to a new begining

The end of class is coming quickly and as it does I am pondering all of the things to do with my blog... I have learned so much and yet I feel there will be so much more to learn. I started with this blog having absolutely no direction... But now I feel that I can take this blog as many places as I have taken my web pages previously. I had conflicting views of what an educational blog would be, how media and blogs would co-exist, and even why someone would want a blog for themselves rather than just a webpage... Now I think I know that blogging can be professional, personal, and/or educational. I know that they can be used to bring people together in a way that regular webpages keep their distance. So as class comes to an end I see this not as an ending but a begining. For I have only begun to learn the many ways I can use a blog for myself and others, to inform, educate, and bring together groups of people who may never have previously connected.

What's "it" good for?

I have been struggling to work full time, attend internship full time, and manage to find time to blog. So I have been doing a lot of browsing everyone else's blogs to see how they are coming along. I am rather intrigued to see how well these blogs are coming.

I have continued to research articles on blogs through the WOU Library but there aren't as many on the specific categories I am interested in... I then started looking online. Though there are blogs everywhere, finding them on specific topics are difficult. While looking up articles on Blogging and Autism I did find one news paper article. It discussed how a mother who had a child with Autism had a difficult time until they started a blog themselves and began bringing others together. http://ezproxy.wou.edu:2066/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=88149905-e70c-4641-a561-75a3665f4126%40sessionmgr10&vid=4&hid=10

This article, and other blogs I have reviewed, showed me that it is up to us to create meaningful, helpful, and insightful blogs. If we want to start seeing blogs used for a stronger purpose than individual/personal use we need to be the ones to do it and research it so that others may benefit.

Article Review: Blogging in Higher Education

            The second article was a summarization of the study of graduate students at the Open University in the UK. It studied 15 students who were taking an e-learning course for their Masters degree. This course did not focus on blogging though it set them up to use a blog for whatever purpose they chose. As the select group of students embarked on a blogging assignment their activities were recorded and categorized to better explain the use of blogging in an educational environment.

The results of the study were somewhat as expected, a significant portion of the students (4) wrote and contributed only as much as made necessary by the outline of the project. Some embraced the chance to use the blogging activity as a learning experience and others found a way to use the project for personal gain while staying within the parameters of the assignment. The results of the study were relatively simple, some people embraced the opportunity and others saw it merely as another classroom assignment. As with most learning tools, the students use of and ability to learn from blogging came down to the underlying work ethic and drive of the student.

Kerawalla, L., Minocha, S., Kirkup, G., and Conole, G. (2009). An empirically grounded framework to guide blogging in higher education. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25, 31-42. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00286.x

Article Review: Blogging in Elementary Education

The first article that I read discussed blogging in an elementary classroom. It included that with today’s technology it is important for students to start getting an understanding of how to increase/develop their communication skills and reading comprehension. There are four common types of blogs found in elementary classrooms; Classroom News Blogs, Mirror Blogs, Showcase Blogs, and Literature Response Blogs. Classroom News Blogs are what they sound like. They are blogs specifically to show students and parents current assignments, class updates, school updates, and other information that teachers may feel important to announce. Mirror Blogs are where teachers are able to write their reflections and insights on various topics, lectures, books, etc. Showcase Blogs are a place teachers can display their student’s projects, artwork, and other various assignments that the teacher feels appropriate. Literature Response Blogs are for posting stories and/or thought provoking information to increase student thinking and response.

The next large part in the article reviewed “HOT” blogging, which includes four steps Bolster the Background, Prime the Pump, Continue the Conversation, and Make Multiplicity Expensive. These steps, when used correctly, encourage various types of learning and comprehension. The first step is where the background information is started. Priming the Pump increases communication and thinking by giving topic discussion questions. This helps lead into Continuing the Conversation, which is where others start summarizing the topic and what they’ve learned. Making Multiplicity Expensive is the last step where students read each other’s responses and learn these different writing styles and views. Overall the teacher did notice the students learning increase. It was assumed that this was due to the students increased exposure to various information online and from peers.

Zawilinski, L. (2009). Hot blogging: A framework for blogging to promote higher order thinking. The Reading Teacher. 62, 650–661 Doi:10.1598/RT.62.8.3

An introduction...

When I was a teen I played around on the free website builder programs. As I entered college Myspace and Facebook were created. But regardless of the application in which people used as an outlet to their creativity, blogs seemed to have remained a part of them. I use to post my poetry to blogs but then the Myspace and Facebook scares arose, and as I saw other mention, posting any kind of personal information seemed dangerous on various levels.

Seeing that a class was offered which appeared to teach about blogging and how it can be used educationally and professionally increased my interest again. The thought of creating web pages and blogging, for a purpose other than personal use/interest seems highly appealing. I am interested in learning ways to use a blog professionally and educationally. I feel there are many companies both in the public and private sector who may benefit employers, employees, and potential clients if they knew more about how to blog in this manner. My goal is to find ways in which the public sector could utilize blogging to reach out to those who may not know certain services and groups exsist.

I am a 2^nd year Master’s student in the Rehabilitation Education Program here at Western. Currently, I live in Marion County and work for the Department of Human Services. Now that internship has started, and my combined work/school hours have dropped, I am looking at getting back into my hobbies, getting outdoors, playing “extreme sports,” and taking pictures the entire time.